William E. Johnson

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William Eugene Johnson
William E. "Pussyfoot" Johnson
Born 25 March 1862
Coventry, New York
Died 2 February 1945
Chenango County, New York
Occupation Prohibition leader, law enforcement
Spouse Lillie M. Trevitt (1886-1927)
May B. Stanley (1928-1945)

William Eugene "Pussyfoot" Johnson (25 March 1862–2 February 1945) was an American Prohibition advocate and law enforcement officer. In pursuit of his campaign to outlaw intoxicating beverages, he openly admitted to having drunk liquor, bribery, and lying. He gained the nickname "Pussyfoot" due to his cat-like stealth in the pursuit of suspects in the Oklahoma Territory.

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[edit] Biography

Born in Coventry, New York, Johnson was educated at the University of Nebraska. Following college he stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska and worked at The Lincoln Daily News before becoming manager of the Nebraska News Bureau. He met Lillie M. Trevitt while in Lincoln and the two were married in 1886. Johnson's first wife died in 1927 and he married May B. Stanley of Washington D.C. in 1928.

During his time in Nebraska, Johnson's views on temperance were formed and he gained a reputation as a Prohibitionist. In 1889, while Nebraska was engaged in a debate over state-wide prohibition, Johnson posed as an anti-Prohibitionist to obtain information from brewery and saloon owners. He then published information which was detrimental to the "wet" cause.

Johnson's temperance activities earned him governmental notice and he was appointed special agent of the Department of the Interior to enforce laws in Indian Territory and Oklahoma in 1906. He was chief agent of the United States Indian Service from July 1908 until September 1911 and secured more than 4,400 convictions through a practice of sweeping into gambling saloons and other disorderly places. Saloon keepers affected by Johnson's raids banded together to offer a US$3,000 reward for his death. Upon learning of the reward, Johnson changed to nighttime raids and destroyed most of the raided establishments.

After resigning from federal service, he moved to Kansas and began working with the Anti-Saloon League. There "he developed some of the tactics that would later be widely used in the Anti-Saloon League. For example, he wrote to wet leaders falsely claiming to be a brewer and asked for advice on how to defeat temperance activists. He then published the letters he received to embarrass and discredit his opposition."[1]

Johnson served as managing editor of 35 Anti-Saloon League publications between 1912 and 1926 before becoming manager and then director of the London office of the World League Against Alcoholism. He was a member of the International Temperance Committee of Fifty in Paris (1919) and was also a delegate to the fourteenth International Anti-Alcoholic Congress in Milan (1913) and Tartu (1926).

In addition to his work within he United States Johnson toured internationally to promote Prohibition. During one such trip he lost his right eye in a rock throwing incident. On 13 November 1919 he was captured by a mob of medical students while at a speaking engagement and paraded through the streets of London on a stretcher before being rescued by police. During the ragging, Johnson was struck by an object thrown from the crowd and lost his eye after physicians were unable to repair the resulting damage.

Johnson retired from public life in 1930, returning to his family farm in Chenango County, New York until his death on 2 February 1945.

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  1. ^ [1] and [2]

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Persondata
NAME Johnson, William Eugene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Johnson, William E.;Johnson, Pussyfoot
SHORT DESCRIPTION American temperance leader
DATE OF BIRTH 25 March 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Coventry, New York
DATE OF DEATH 2 February 1945
PLACE OF DEATH Binghamton, New York
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